LOS ANGELES, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Since the beginning of the Atomic Age, policymakers and scholars have attempted to come up with formulas to constrain the nuclear genie. In mid-January, in an effort to move this ambition forward, former senior decision-makers -- Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, Defense Secretary William Perry and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Samuel Nunn -- released "Toward a Nuclear-Free World," a report published in the Wall Street Journal designed to advance nuclear abolition.

The timing would seem propitious. In December 2007, in voting down a new nuclear weapon (the reliable replacement warhead), Congress mandated that President Bush and his successor rationalize the U.S. nuclear arsenal by the end of 2009 to justify future appropriations. As a result, a disarmament proposal advanced by such statesmen and endorsed by dozens of prominent experts should be taken seriously. Unfortunately, it cannot.

At first blush the Shultz et al. proposal appears to be promising for nuclear-arms controllers, who could object to extension of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, deeper nuclear reductions beyond those promoted by the Bush administration or increasing the warning time for the initiation of nuclear use. Likewise the call for cooperative ballistic missile defense, increased security at nuclear materials sites, strengthening non-proliferation verification and implementation of the treaty banning nuclear weapons testing. If constraining nuclear development or use marks the objective, the answer is no one.

However, if the aim truly is the elimination of nuclear arms -- the authors declared an objective to eradicate the "threat to the world" -- the proposal falls far short. A review of what could be done versus what the authors say should be done supports this conclusion.

-- Set a timeline for the elimination of nuclear arsenals, not an "agreement to undertake further substantial reductions." The authors' call for extension of the monitoring provisions of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty coupled to undefined reductions below the 1,700 to 2,200 nuclear warheads allowed under the 1992 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty with Russia may be admirable, but it does not amount a "nuclear-free world." Absent weapons elimination benchmarks -- including disposal of non-deployed warheads -- the authors' plan amounts to maintenance of diminished but still substantial weapons caches.